Published 2026-08-09 · Last revised 2026-08-09
Every real-money casino app presents the same problem to someone opening it for the first time: hundreds of tiles, sorted by studio and by theme, with nothing telling you which of them are actually different from each other. Most of that grid is the same handful of mechanisms wearing different art.
There are five underlying kinds, and the useful way to tell them apart is by three questions: what decides the outcome, how many decisions you genuinely make, and how many rounds an hour it runs at.
The five, side by side
| Type | What decides the outcome | Your decisions | Typical pace |
|---|---|---|---|
| RNG slots | Software draw at the moment you spin. | Stake size only. | Very fast — hundreds of spins per hour. |
| Live dealer tables | Physical wheel, shoe or dice on camera. | Which bet; in blackjack, how to play the hand. | Slow — a few dozen rounds per hour. |
| Crash / originals | A multiplier drawn before betting closes. | Stake, and when to cash out. | Fast — a round every 15–30 seconds. |
| Card games | A shuffled deck. | Betting, folding, and when to compare. | Moderate, and set by the table. |
| Instant & arcade | Software draw per shot, ticket or reveal. | Stake, target selection. | Fast, and often continuous rather than in rounds. |
1. RNG slots
The reels are an animation. The result was drawn by the random number generator the instant you committed the spin, and the spinning exists to present it. Nothing you do while it runs — stopping it early, changing speed, switching to autoplay — touches the outcome.
So the only genuine variables are which game and how much per spin. The two numbers that describe a slot are its RTP and its volatility, and they answer different questions: what it costs over the long run, and how bumpy the ride is on the way there. Both are covered properly in RTP and volatility explained.
2. Live dealer tables
A real dealer, real equipment, a video feed, and a betting interface over the top. Roulette, baccarat and blackjack are the core; game shows are the same idea with a wheel and a presenter.
Two things distinguish this category. The first is that the classic rule sets carry the lowest edges in the building — around 1.06% on baccarat’s banker bet, 2.7% flat on single-zero roulette. The second is that it is slow: a physical wheel, real card handling and a betting window mean a few dozen rounds an hour rather than hundreds. Those two facts together are why live tables are usually the cheapest hour in the lobby, even though the minimum stakes tend to be higher.
Blackjack is the one place in the category where decisions have mathematically correct answers, so how you play moves the edge within a narrow band. Roulette does not: every bet on the layout carries the same house edge, so bet selection there is a choice about volatility, not about return.
3. Crash and “originals”
A multiplier climbs from 1x and stops at a point that was already decided before betting closed. Cash out before it stops and you keep the multiplier; leave it too late and you lose the stake. Aviator is the best-known example, and the whole category shares the same shape.
This is the one type where the pre-commitment is usually published: provably fair implementations release a hash of the round’s result in advance so players can verify afterwards that nothing was changed once bets were in. It is also the type most heavily targeted by “predictor” sellers, and the same pre-commitment is exactly what makes prediction impossible — see why Aviator predictors cannot work.
Worth knowing about the pace: rounds are short, and a cash-out decision every twenty seconds is a lot of decisions per hour. That combination is what makes crash games feel more skilful than they are.
4. Card games
Teen Patti, Andar Bahar, Dragon Tiger and rummy-style games. The deal is random; what varies is how much betting structure sits on top of it.
At one end, Dragon Tiger is a two-card comparison with no decisions at all beyond the bet. At the other, Teen Patti has blind and seen play, raises and sideshows, and most rounds are decided by betting rather than by cards — roughly nine hands in ten are a pair or worse, which is the fact that shapes the whole game. The exact counts are in Teen Patti hand rankings and the odds behind them.
One distinction to hold onto: some of these run player-versus-player with the house taking a commission, and some are house-banked table games with a published edge. The skill available to you is very different in each, and the interface does not always make it obvious which you are in.
5. Instant and arcade games
Fishing games, bingo rooms, scratch-style instant wins, dice and mines. Mechanically these are RNG games like slots, but presented as an activity rather than as rounds — which is precisely what makes them worth flagging separately.
A fishing game charges per shot. Shots are fast, cheap and continuous, so there is no natural moment where you notice a round has ended and a decision is due. The absence of a round boundary is the real difference from a slot, and it is the thing to be conscious of.
The number nobody quotes: rounds per hour
House edge is always advertised per round. Your actual cost is edge multiplied by everything you stake, and total stake is bet size times number of rounds. So pace belongs in the calculation, and once you put it there the usual ranking inverts:
| Scenario | Rounds/hr | Staked | Edge | Expected cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slot, ₹10 a spin, autoplay | ~600 | ₹6,000 | 4% | ~₹240/hr |
| Live roulette, ₹100 a round | ~40 | ₹4,000 | 2.7% | ~₹108/hr |
| Crash, ₹20 a round | ~150 | ₹3,000 | ~3% | ~₹90/hr |
The slot in that table has the smallest stake per round and the highest hourly cost, by a factor of more than two over the roulette table with ten times the bet size. Nothing there is a trick — it is just that 600 multiplied by anything is a big number. Expected cost is an average, not a prediction of your night, but it is the right way to compare two games that describe themselves in incompatible units.
What this means when you open the lobby
- Sort by mechanism, not by theme. Fifty slots with different art are one decision, not fifty.
- Check the pace before the percentage. Autoplay and turbo modes change your hourly cost far more than a two-point RTP difference does.
- Know which games have real decisions. Blackjack and player-versus-player card games do. Slots, roulette and crash do not, whatever a strategy video claims.
- Watch for games without round boundaries. Fishing and continuous-shot formats remove the natural pause where you would otherwise stop and count.
- Set the session budget before you pick a game, and use the in-app deposit limits rather than relying on willpower — see responsible gaming.
For what is actually in the IC7 lobby — which studios supply each section, how the categories are laid out and where the live tables sit — the walkthrough is on the IC7 casino guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is the real difference between an RNG game and a live dealer game?
In an RNG game the outcome is generated by software the moment you commit — the reels or cards you see are a presentation of a number that has already been drawn. In a live dealer game the outcome comes from physical equipment on camera: a real wheel, a real shoe of cards. The odds are set by the rules in both cases, so this is a difference in how the result is produced and how fast rounds run, not in whether the game is fair.
Which type has the lowest house edge?
Among the classic rule sets, baccarat's banker bet is around 1.06% and single-zero roulette is 2.7% flat across every bet on the layout. Online slots typically sit between 3% and 6%. But edge per round is only half the picture — a low-edge game played at high speed can cost more per hour than a high-edge game played slowly.
So why does pace matter more than the percentage?
Because your cost is edge multiplied by everything you stake, and total stake is your bet size multiplied by how many rounds you play. A slot on autoplay can run several hundred spins an hour; a live table runs a few dozen. That difference is far larger than the gap between a 2.7% and a 4% edge, so it dominates the arithmetic.
Are any of these games skill games?
Only partly, and only in some. Slots, crash games and roulette have no decision that changes the maths. Blackjack has decisions with mathematically correct answers, so play quality moves the edge within a narrow band. Player-versus-player card games have real skill in the betting, though never in the deal — nothing changes which cards arrive.
Which type is best to start with?
Whichever one you understand completely before staking. Beyond that, the practical answer is a slow game with few decisions and a stake small enough that a bad run is boring rather than alarming — live table games are slow but usually carry higher minimums, while a low-volatility slot at a small stake is slow in money terms even when it is fast in spins.
Do bonuses work the same across all five types?
No, and this catches people. Bonus wagering requirements usually count game types at different rates — slots often contribute fully while table and live games contribute a fraction or nothing. Two players clearing the same bonus can therefore need very different amounts of play, so read the contribution table rather than the headline number.
18+ only · Real-money play is not an income source